Yes, I really resented it. Really resented the fact that we couldn’t just go to bed and get pregnant like every other couple can. The fact that, our children, well, the fact that now our children are actually genetically not going to be linked to us. In the miracles of modern science it means we can now have children it is amazing and we will be forever grateful to the people who donated their eggs as well. But it does anger me that we were never able to just go to bed, and have sex and have a child. You know, it’s not a right, that is completely the wrong word to use but it is what people see as a natural progression, and for that to be interrupted is really hard to deal with.

I don’t think we realised how hard it was going to be. I mean they say to you, It is hard And you know, you need to bepeople don’t tell you, I think how emotionally strong you need to be, I think. You know, that it is going to take its toll physically. You know that you’re going to have lots of things done to you. And at the time you just think, well I’ll do whatever it takes. So you don’t really think about that. But I don’t think there was enough emphasis on the emotional side of things. You are offered counselling, and I was really fortunate, because the person that we went to for counselling, we had the two sessions together and then I had her as a counsellor actually for years afterwards. And we just kind of, I just found that I could really talk to her. So that was good.

Although I do feel that subsequently actually I did come to rely her on too much and I felt that that was stopping me from doing things myself. I was just going in and pouring it all out there.

But yes, I just, I feel that we weren’t prepared and I think a good way to prepare people would be to talk to people who have been through it, rather than just go to evenings, because you put all your hopes into those doctor and those nurses. they’re the people that are going to work the miracle for you, they’re the people or you, they’re the people that are going to, you know, so whilst they do all say well is this might not work, this might not work. You just don’t see it. You just go in there and you think, right I am going to do, I am going to have my baby and of course you are sitting there.

The biggest thing, I think they need to do it to a certain extent, but I do not think they should have all the photos up on the wall. I really don’t, because that again, just re-enforces either what you have not got or what you are desperate for. And, you know, there are some people that have come in and are going through subsequent attempts, having had a baby. They are there with their blooming babies sitting there, and all you want to do is kill the baby. Or kill the people for having had the baby.

I think it was probably more involved than I expected it to be. I didn’t realise I was going to have quite so many injections and blood tests and scans and things like that. And having to do daily injections and then twice-daily injections myself. I mean I think that’s one of the biggest things that I was terrified of, because I’ve got a real phobia of needles. And the thought of actually having to do my own injections, actually sort of press the button on the thing and stick it into me. Which for someone who’s got diabetes for example is not going to faze them in the slightest. But for me, who had a lifelong aversion to going anywhere near a needle, I just thought I wouldn’t be able to do it. The egg collection was very different from what I expected as well. And I think that again a lot of my friends really had no idea what was involved in that, until that programme was on just before Christmas, A Child Against All Odds. And they actually showed the egg collection on TV. And I had quite a lot of interesting feedback from my friends at that stage, saying, I didn’t realise that was actually what it involved You know, I think they kind of thought they put a spatula in and just collected them all out or something. They didn’t realise it was actually a needle. And that was quite traumatic to begin with, because I was quite worried about sort of going in for an operation and everything. But it was actually, again it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I was quite sore and a bit swollen and pretty tender afterwards, but it wasn’t as bad as I expected it.

I think the absolute worse time during the whole cycle was the wait between the transfer of the embryos to find out whether you were pregnant.

There are lots of things that happen along the way, that you think I wish they had told us as they were doing it.

So I had my egg [ovary] stimulated, that was fine. It feels like you are walking round with sacks of potatoes in you, it is an absolutely horrible feeling, and I think throughout the stimulation, the nasal stimulation that is not so bad, but then you start to get like menopausal symptoms, you get night flushes, you get emotional, you cry. Well I did. Very up and down. [Husband] was very patient.

And then when you start the injections, that is when things start to kind of grow inside you, your ovaries go, so then you start to feel like you are really heavy, which I hated that feeling. Walking round carrying these things inside me.

But my ovaries did stimulate that time and we were ready for egg collection. So of course, you get really excited then, you get told that there is plenty going on in there, it is all very exciting.

But the one thing I wish they had told me is how horrible egg collection is. Because nobody told us. So we were told to take a CD and I would have a sedative and you know, they would take the eggs. And it was just agony. I just
I was really cross with them because I took one of my favourite CDs, and I can remember lying on the bed looking at the ceiling and there is this lovely, kind of, you know, music. I can’t remember what it was now. And now for me, the memory of that is ruined, because when I listen to that. I think it was like Adie’ which is very kind of choral and I can’t listen to it now, without seeing myself back on that bed, having somebody like pull your insides out. To me that is what it felt like. I wasn’t asleep and I could feel them absolutely, just dragging these eggs out. And it isI am quite cynical now. But it is really bizarre because every time they get an egg, they go, Oh, an egg You know, like, and at the time you are really excited, you think that’s my potential baby’, but actually it is just an egg.

And they show it you on the screen and you are like, ooh’ and you have all got to go, ooh how lovely. I found that very, very painful and afterwards incredibly painful. I mean I came home and just, you know, I felt like they had just pulled all my insides out.

But of course you recover from that, because then you have got the possibility of your eggs, you know, and I think we had, we didn’t have a major collection then. I think was about eight eggs, which by kind of, I guess standards, isn’t that many and then [husband] does his bit and they fertilise them.

The hyper-stimulation with the IVF was quite a lot worse. And that is the one where you can die basically. I mean I was never close to dying but I don’t think that you can, and that is what they, you know, And again I thought, then again may be I am just really, really unlucky but they tell you at the beginning this is one of those things where you do this like, you know, these pages and pages of small print, oh no you can have this thing, OSS or OHS or whatever they call it, but it is really, really rare. Ra ra ra ra, you know, they kind of just gloss over it and I think well actually this has happened to me twice how rare really is it. Is this honestly that rare or is this may be a bit more of a danger then people tell you about. Or is it just because everybody who goes in there, is in there for a completely different reason. You know, there are people in there because, you know, they are far too old and everything has kind of gone. And this is last stage it could happen. And then there are people like us who are a lot younger and it is unexplained and there is nothing actually anyone could find wrong. And then there is people with really very clear problems, you know, and yet they are treating everybody who goes in for IVF with a sort of blanket, I don’t know, this sort of theory, you know, this is how it works, this is how we do it, it doesn’t matter what is wrong with you. This is what we are doing. I suppose that is probably not a hundred % true if there are something that is obvious, they probably do certain other things too, but you know, there is a sort of bottom line, like that is what you do. And to me that always seemed kind of bizarre for somebody who has may be, you know, got low hormone levels or has got something else, then yes, you probably need this amount of medication to get things going. But for someone like me, who there was no proven problem. It just, I am not a doctor, but it seems to me, you know, a little bizarre that you would assume that I needed this really high, you know, level of kind of hormonal treatment. Or that you would assume that I wouldn’t hyperstimulate, you know, given that because obviously everything is already working pretty much all right. So to me, it would seem you probably need less to get everything going, and, anyway, I knew, you know, I knew from the beginning really that I was going to hyperstimulate because I said it had happened before and you know it was the same dose of medicine and but there are many more follicles because they were allowed to develop and you know, but the time I got really ill with it, I already knew it was happening and I knew we weren’t being able to go through the cycle, but I also knew I was going to finish it so that they could freeze them because there was no way I was doing this again basically, and I thought well this is our, you know, our chance where we are going to do it I am not doing it again, and so towards the end which is, it was really antithetical to everything that you want to think, because you know, this is happening but you are still injecting yourself at this time because you have to get it to go through to sort of complete.

And so I, I am trying to think how this worked. It will have been quite close to the egg collection by that point when I really started to, you know, my stomach You can see the size of me, I had something like a 36 inch waist because of the fluid, you know, the way it was swelling. I mean I looked pregnant. I also looked several months pregnant. Really painful. I mean I remember thinking I could really straighten up because it was so painful all the time, it was like aching or whatever and sharp pains as well and you feel horrendously sick and you know, all this.

Meanwhile I am to drag up there every two days and also look after a four year old, a three year old. And then therewas a night when they say, you should watch up for a really rapid increase in your, you know, weight, or your, you know, the size of your middle. And both those things happened. I gained five pounds in kind of like an hour or something because what happens is everything is swelling, it is retaining fluid and you just, that is when you can get really into big trouble basically.

So I phoned up the ward, and they were great. You have to come up here. I don’t mind coming up here, but it was quite late at night and they said, Okay. You can go down to Borders. The local hospital. So I did go there and basically they couldn’t do anything. They just sort of watched and made sure I didn’t get worse and it didn’t get worse and so I just kind of stayed where I was for a couple more days until they did the egg collection and then even after that, they do the egg collection, for a while you feel better because all the stuff has sort of been drained out. And then it all fills up again and so it takes weeks to go away. And the reason why they won’t, apparently why they won’t do they, they won’t transfer the embryo if you have had that, is because if you actually got pregnant after that you would end up really, really, ill for kind of several months, whereas if you let it go away and subside and whatever then ultimately it goes back to normal. So yes. it is pretty horrific yes.

I think the absolute worse time during the whole cycle was the wait between the transfer of the embryos and to find out whether you were pregnant. Because for sort of four weeks up until that stage, four or five weeks up until that stage you’d been doing something every day. You’d been remembering to take your tablets, have your injections, you know, do your jabs, make sure you go, go for your blood test, have your scan, have your egg collection. And then you were waiting to find out about your fertilisation rate. And then you go for your embryo transfer and they put the embryos back in. And then that’s it. And you’re just like, And what do I do now And I mean some women do take injections and pessaries and things afterwards. But our clinic didn’t do anything like that at the time. And you do feel sort of very in limbo, as if you’re not really sure what you’re supposed to be doing. And just the whole two weeks when you’re just feeling every single twinge and every single pain. And any little bit of spotting that you might get, you know, Is that implantation spotting? Or, am I, is my period about to start And, Do my breasts feel different And, Do I feel sick And just analysing absolutely every single symptom. Which if you conceive naturally you just don’t even think about. You know, you think, you make love in the middle of your cycle and then realise that your period’s a couple of weeks late. And you think, Oh, I might be pregnan and you test. Whereas with IVF you have, you know the exact time of conception. You know, those embryos were put back in at 11 o’clock on the Tuesday morning. And you know that exactly fourteen days later you have to take a pregnancy test to see whether you’re pregnant or not. And it’s a very very long two weeks, a very long two weeks. And I think that was the hardest bit. You know, the injections and the scans and everything else were quite stressful because there was no, so many stages during the cycle where things could have gone wrong. But I think it was those two weeks of just waiting and waiting and waiting and feeling every single pain and twinge and cramp in your body. And just reading every sign-, you know, some days you’re reading it all and thinking, I’m pregnant. And the next day, you know, your symptom disappeared, or your stomach started to hurt and you were convinced your period was arriving. And the day after you’d feel differently again. And it was very very difficult, very difficult.